“Having fun is not a diversion from a successful life. It’s a pathway to it.”
Martha Beck
“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.”
Helen Keller
This blog was meant to be published the day after Labour Day. Growing up in Canada, that was the first day of a brand-new school year. I remember going to school in a new outfit with a pencil case and a backpack full of new school supplies (and yes, I do know that I had a very privileged childhood). I always felt a flurry of butterflies as I walked into the classroom, even if it was a school building I was familiar with. Each new school year felt ripe with possibilities. If it’s not clear already, I really loved school.
That’s how I wanted to introduce the topic of fun: as if we were at the beginning of a brand new year, bursting with possibilities for enhancing wellbeing. I also wanted to encourage us all to savor some of the fun we had - or at least I hope you all had - in the Northern summer or the Southern winter - depending on where in the world you are.
hoped this blog would be out in the world before the meetings ramped up in September and life got hectic again (though I know for some of you it was never not hectic). I felt compelled - driven by an intense desire - to remind us that we can still have fun even when life gets busy and that, in fact, it’s never more important to have fun than when life gets hectic.
But alas, before that hope could become a reality, a few things happened. First, my laptop crashed while I was traveling. The repair shop didn’t have the part they needed to fix it and had to order it in from another country. It ended up taking a week for the part to arrive and my laptop to be operational again. While it was challenging being without my laptop on many fronts, it also gave me an opportunity to adapt and go with the flow a bit more. It opened up more time to enjoy where I’m at and didn’t allow me to numb out to things that feel uncomfortable in the here and now as much. That enabled me to relish being in the moment more. That said, it did put me behind on several key deliverables. By the time I was fully operational again, the flurry of fall meetings had begun and the opportunity to publish this blog before their onset had been lost.
The reason I so desperately wanted for this blog to launch with the start of the month like a crisp new pencil or a shiny new notebook is because I worry that many of you have lost your joie de vivre. I know what that’s like because I lost mine for a very long time. I forgot to feel joyful to be alive. To be grateful for all I have and all the abundance and opportunities all around me. I definitely forgot to play (still working on that one). I’m still yearning for a childlike enthusiasm for life. But it is something I work on very intently and doing so is making my life better, fuller, richer. And I want the same for you Dear Reader.
A lot of my challenges around having fun stem from how I’ve been conditioned to view fun as a luxury. Something for children but not serious adults like me. Definitely not for people doing serious work like me. How could I have fun when there’s so much ailing the world? When there is so much hanging in the balance? When I am steeped in the reality of loss and damage every day?
But then I realised something and here’s what that thing is: As Mary Oliver wrote in her beautiful poem, The Summer Day:
“Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
I believe we are spiritual beings having a human experience and, as such, at our core we are infinite. So maybe we will each get another spin on Earth school, another chance at this thing called being human and another after that. But this time, in this body, I want to have a big, bold life. Full of adventure, love, laughter and . . . fun. And of course I also want to make big, bold change in the world.
Those things are not incongruent with one another. In fact, the more adventures we have, the more we love, the more we laugh and the more fun we have - the better change makers we’ll be. As marine biologist, writer and climate policy expert Ayana Elizabeth Johnson wisely said in this post for the recent Climate Variety Show she co-hosted with Jason Sudekis:
How about we take climate change seriously but not take ourselves seriously?
That sounds good to me now. But a year ago, I would have been really confronted by that statement. I long had a reputation as someone who was super duper serious and very, very hardworking. It took me a long time to acknowledge that so much of that was based on a fear of really engaging with life. I used my work and the seriousness of the issues I work on to justify overworking to numb out. Because anything else just felt too painful.
But then slowly I began to unravel that pain and while it’s still an on-going process, I feel more alive again. While I’m still very much new at cultivating fun, joy and delight intentionally, the project of doing so has allowed me to understand that fun is a right and we all deserve - and require - fun, joy, delight and pleasure (among other good things) in our lives. As Mike Rucker says in his book Fun Habits:
“Fun is - or should be - one of the fundamental goods available to all of us. we don’t get through life without enduring periods of disappointment, pain and loss. Fun is the magical balm that makes the slings and arrows bearable.”
Rucker explains that fun is critical to brain development. Having fun and playing enables children to develop and fine tune both their social and fine motor skills. This allows them to test and establish boundaries and to cultivate connection. For adults fun is a mechanism through which to explore life and to figure out what brings us joy and gives us pleasure. It allows us to test out different versions of ourselves. And importantly, fun is essential to health and wellbeing. Laughing and simply being happy reduces anxiety and depression and makes us feel better about ourselves. Fun has also been found to improve respiratory and heart health and also plays a critical role in longevity.
So if all that is true - and the science says that it is - then why the heck do we ever stop having fun? The answer is because most of the cultural norms that drive our societies tend to devalue fun and overvalue productivity and that’s not an accident. In the Industrial Age factory owners focused their efforts on getting more productivity out of their employees. Now we’re in the Information Age and that trend continues. In Fun Habits Rucker writes:
“With intellectual property and innovation now the work product, we are no longer workers operating sprockets and cogs. We are the sprockets and cogs, and our ability to perform is exploited and over-optimized just like the equipment on an assembly line. We have become the machines that now output the goods that create profits for others.”
He argues that, “we’ve been duped”. This conditioning to value overwork and overwhelm over fun, joy and delight goes so deep that it’s hard to deprogram ourselves. As I wrote in the June installment in our year-long series of wellbeing, building on the shoulders of a true giant in this field, Tricia Hersey, who argues for rest as a way to resist being a cog in the wheel of the capitalism system that wants us to grind. Another way is to have fun. But if you’re not used to having fun, where do you start?
If you read my blogs you’ll know that I am a huge fan of the We Can Do Hard Things podcast. Earlier this year fun-expert Catherine Price was the guest on two consecutive episodes of the podcast, both focused on fun. Co-host Amanda Doyle introduced the episode with this profound statement:
“We have to be fully alive, to live fully.”
And to do that we must have fun. It’s not optional. However, like her co-host and sister, Glennon Doyle, Amanda has admitted to having a complicated relationship with fun. Both women continue to grapple with what fun means for them and how they could have more of it, something I very much relate to. In fact, Glennon explained that they didn’t follow up their fourth episode (which was an intervention on the need to have more fun from her wife Abby Wombach) with another episode on fun because she thought that fun was just a trend that would eventually pass. But then she had a realisation that actually:
“It turns out that fun is fundamental.”
If you’ve lost your joie de vivre or forgotten how to have fun like I did, you need to start with the basics (again like I did). So, before we can get back to having fun we need to understand what fun is. We need to feel what it’s like in our bodies. Price’s definition is slightly different from other definitions of fun. I’ve always thought of fun as something that brings me joy. But Price defines true fun as when we experience three states simultaneously: playfulness, connection and flow. Fun is essentially a Venn diagram where all three of those states overlap. And here’s the tricky thing: playfulness requires vulnerability. It is a state of being completely authentic, so utterly ourselves.
Fun is not necessarily an activity, Price argues, but an experience or a feeling within an experience. True fun is slightly different for Price than what she calls activities that give us a “quiet nourishment” which include things like meditation, reading, breathwork and walks in nature. Co-host Abby Womback gave an example of true fun, recalling a recent experience skiing which she described as, “this sense of divine yesness” . . . that for her felt like all the cells in her body being lit up. She said it was fun anticipating skiing, fun while she was doing it and fun remembering what it was like. That’s true fun. Wombach talked about another experience surfing with her family during which her heart felt like it was exploding.
Here’s another tricky thing about fun, Price argues that, “you have to be present in order to have fun.” In our world today we have so many distractions that take us out of our bodies. You might be holding one in your hand right now and you’re definitely looking at one if you’re reading this. To truly be immersed in fun, you have to be fully immersed in your own body, not worrying how the outside world sees you. That’s difficult for many of us, especially women as our societies like to tell us how our bodies should look.
In order to have fun, true fun, we need to let go of who we think ourselves, as Amanda Doyle says, “to squash our inner critic”. We can’t be worrying about what we look like or what we sound like. We need to be fully in our bodies [for more on embodiment, have a look at the May installment of our yearslong series on embodiment with co-author and embodiment coach Sheila Ruiz].
When I think back on some recent moments of fun I think of kayaking with my brother, hiking with my sister-in-law and nephews and a lazy afternoon reading with my mum. I’m sure you can think of moments in the recent past too where playfulness, connection and flow intersected. It doesn’t have to be a big moment. As I write, I am in New York for Climate Week. I’ve had lots of fun here; so many moments of living at the intersection of playfulness, connection and flow with old friends and new ones. All while also doing serious work.
We are all capable of having more fun in our lives, injecting more joy and delight into the everyday. I’ve written before about how I can recall so many moments of fun with colleagues while waiting for plenaries to start, laughing at silly things, making each other laugh. As I wrote in June, it is the connections that make our work worthwhile.
When we bring more fun into our lives, it will make us better at everything we do, including making change in the world. Fun allows us to see the humanity in others and as Amanda Doyle said in the conversation with Price:
“If you’re not recognizing your own humanity and your own preciousness and your own individual divinity then of course it is not going to horrify you when the divinity and preciousness of other people is being eliminated and diminished.”
Price adds that fun will make us both more productive and more creative. But, that’s not the reason why I want to incorporate fun into your life. Just like I don’t want you to rest because it will make you better at your job. We started with self-love and then courage and discipline as foundations of wellbeing because you will need to love yourself enough and then have enough courage and discipline to stand up for your right to have fun. It might sound silly but it’s true.
So how do we have more fun in our lives - both our work lives and our personal lives?
Price recommends not forcing it. She suggests focusing on filling lives with more of “fun’s ingredients” which are playfulness, connection and flow. Scan your life for that and add what you can. And then you need to make space for more fun in your life which will require saying no to some things. And then allow yourself to remember what it felt to experience true fun. Note down some of those experiences and then find themes.
For me the themes are being outside, moving my body in ways that feel good, sometimes being silly and often laughing. Those are my fun magnets. So I’m working on being more open to bringing those elements more into my life. And just to care less what people think. That seems like a pretty essential element to have more fun.
I’m also working on finding more delight in my life which was a theme of another episode of the We Can Do Hard Things with poet, professor and expert on joy and delight, Ross Gay, who describes joy as:
“the ways that we practice entanglement. The feeling we have when we practice being entangled with one another.”
And like having fun, joy is often sidelined in our lives as something that is a luxury. Yet, as Gay argues in the episode:
“If joy is the evidence of participating in connection, then to suggest that it’s not serious is wrong.”
Glennon Doyle articulated why joy is essential to coming back to one another, which is critical to creating the kind of world we all want to live in:
“The experience of joy makes us aware of the connection and that awareness of connection is what makes us want to love and heal and support each other. So joy is connected to saving the world.”
Gay adds, “and each other”. He doesn’t believe that we should practice cultivating joy as form resistance because, ““joy is the truth.” It’s bigger than everything else. Rejecting joy, not allowing ourselves to feel it, is denying our connection to one another, the natural world and to the planet is how we got to where we are today. So really, our job should be to find more, not less joy in the every day to get us back on track as a global humanity, a human family.
Gay knows what he’s talking about. A few years ago while on a writing residency he decided to write an essay about delight each day for a year. It led to not one book of delights, but two. Now, Gay is a writer and poet. His prose is beautiful and stirring. But you need not be a writer to find delights in your every day. I have a gratitude jar app on my phone that I use to keep track of the little delights I discover throughout the day.
Gay doesn’t agree with joy as resistance because as he says, “joy is the truth.” It’s bigger than everything else. Rejecting joy, not letting it in and as such, denying our connection to one another, the natural world and to the planet is how we got to where we are today. So really, our job should be to find more, not less joy in the every day to get us back on track as a global humanity, a human family.
We have guides who can help us find more joy in our work on climate change too. The other night I had the pleasure of going to an event with Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson about her new book What If We Get It Right? which I highly recommend (I’m a big fan of everything she does). Dr. Johnson has developed a Venn diagram to help folks determine what climate actions they should take, proposing that those actions take lie at the intersection of three questions:
The answer to each of those questions, for me, was: connecting people. That brings me joy and I feel so grateful that that’s what I get to do every day.
As I write this, it’s the end of September. The days are getting cooler and shorter where I am in the world right now. The nights feel crisp but also expansive. My backpack is scuffed up from traveling, my metaphorical pencils are worn down and my notebook is full of scribbles. It’s nearly the end of a very intense month of meetings, culminating in the Summit of the Future and Climate Week in New York City.
A life-long introvert, I am filled up with connection and also exhausted. I will have a bit of alone time over the next few days to recover and process everything I experienced. I will take with me memories of having fun while doing many serious things and the feeling of a joyful heart bursting with love for my fellow human beings. And when I come back online again a few days from now I’ll continue to find little ways to infuse more and more fun into my day. I hope you will too. See you next month!
Erin Roberts is the founder and global lead of the Loss and Damage Collaboration. This year she’s on a journey to cultivate her own wellbeing and help create a thriving community of folks working on Loss and Damage who are healthy and happy. She hopes you’ll join us. Stay tuned for the next blog on minsest, coming to a screen near you in October.
Further reading:
Abrams, G., Tutu, D. and Dalai Lama (2016). The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World. New York: Avery Publishing Group. Find it here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-book-of-joy-lasting-happiness-in-a-changing-world-dalai-lama/10206440?ean=9780399185045.
Brown, S. and C. Vaughn (2009). Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul. London: Penguin Randomhouse. Find it here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/play-how-it-shapes-the-brain-opens-the-imagination-and-invigorates-the-soul-stuart-brown/577397?ean=9781583333785.
Gay, R. (2022). The Book of Delights. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books. Find it here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-book-of-delights-essays-ross-gay/12566058?ean=9781643753287.
Gay, R. (2022). Inciting Joy: Essays. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books. Find it here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/inciting-joy-essays-ross-gay/17888734?ean=9781643753041.
Johnson, A.E. (2023). What If We Get It Right? New York: One World. Find it here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/what-if-we-get-it-right-visions-of-climate-futurism-ayana-elizabeth-johnson/19507444?ean=9780593229361
Price, C. (2021). The Power of Fun: How To Feel Alive Again. London: Dial Press. Find it here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-power-of-fun-how-to-feel-alive-again-catherine-price/16503842?ean=9780593241400.
Rodsky, E. (2021). Find Your Unicorn Space: Reclaim Your Creative Life in a Too-Busy World.
New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons. Find it here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/find-your-unicorn-space-reclaim-your-creative-life-in-a-too-busy-world-eve-rodsky/16550998?aid=2885&ean=9780593328019&listref=self-care-for-all.
Rucker, M. (2024): The Fun Habit: How the Pursuit of Wonder and Joy Can Change Your Life. London: Atria Books. Find it here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-fun-habit-how-the-pursuit-of-joy-and-wonder-can-change-your-life-mike-rucker/20158003?ean=9781982159061.
Seligman, M.P (2012). Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Wellbeing. London: Atria Books. Find it here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/flourish-a-visionary-new-understanding-of-happiness-and-well-being-martin-e-p-seligman/10584696?ean=9781439190760.
